Cemetery Desecration for Profit

There are no words to describe the barbarous levels of inhumanity corporations will sink to, in order to make a dollar.

In the early days of Jefferson County Texas, there were several communities, which have now either been swallowed by the annexation of Beaumont or Port Arthur; or paved over so local businesses could expand.

In 1824, what would become Beaumont, TX was originally just a small community called Tevis Bluff, founded by Noah Tevis. By 1838, Beaumont was Chartered and the had been designated the county seat of Jefferson County.

There was a cemetery where the streets of Gladys and Oakland meet. This was the Jirou Cemetery. The cemetery held almost 50 graves, one of which belonged to founder, Noah Tevis. Jirou Cemetery was also the resting place of Jean Baptiste (Jonas) Chaison, an American Revolutionary War veteran who was also involved in early Texas history. In 1944 the DAR placed a marker on his grave.

In 1969, the cemetery was "obliterated to make way for the building of the Plymouth United Church of Christ", which still sits today at 1460 Gladys St.

The graves were not moved, just plowed over. In fact, Chaison's DAR marker was thrown into the street and fortunately, it was saved by DAR members.

Another example of the lack of respect for cemeteries is the lost communities of Grigsby's Bluff and Smith's Bluff, two German communities between Port Neches and Beaumont.

Two cemeteries used by Smith's Bluff now sit underneath the concrete of Unocal (Union Oil of California) and Sun Oil.

There were 2 cemeteries for the original Port Neches community, used by the German immigrants. One cemetery, deeded in perpetuity to the State of Texas, sat on the corner of Rachford and Dearing Sts. and today sits under a Shell Oil refinery. There were witnesses to the 1946 malicious bulldozing of that particular cemetery, however fortunately for Shell Oil, these witnesses are now deceased.

Perhaps one of the most infamous examples of cemetery desecration for profit is the building of Houston's Jefferson Davis Hospital in 1924. The hospital is built on a Confederate cemetery, although many other locals were buried in this cemetery as well.

In later years, the City of Houston built an impound lot over the cemetery, a Houston Fire Department maintenance building and parking lot are also over what was once the old cemetery.

If one never bothered to research, one would never know there are graves under all of it!

Since corporate America does not respect our cemeteries, is it any wonder the youth of today have no respect for the dead?